The uncertain future of public broadcasting

The ABC's funding model has been the subject of criticism from its commercial counterparts.

AAp: Tracey Nearmy

The future of public broadcasting is again uncertain. The Coalition has an obligation to say up front if has any plans to cut funding or make changes to the ABC before voters go to the polls, writes Quentin Dempster.

What I can say to you is we don't have any plans to cut the funding to the ABC.

Within a year of the change of government in 1996, the ABC Board ordered the industrial 'execution' of 1,000 staff as the Howard government dishonoured its election commitment and cut $11 million to operational base funding immediately and $55 million for the triennium starting 97-98.

Instead of simply apologising that the cuts were necessary to staunch 'Beazley's black hole', as they called it, and that funding would be restored as the budget allowed, the government started a campaign of vilification of public broadcasters with the help of an intimidating and self-righteous Murdoch press.

To those of us suffering survivor guilt as we attended seemingly endless farewells for traumatised colleagues made to walk the redundancy plank, the cuts were ideological and punitive. The grief, distress, anguish and pain went on for years afterwards.

The so-called 'culture wars' which ensued escalated over the Howard years to the point in 2000 where a politically stacked ABC Board appointed Jonathan Shier as managing director.

It was during Shier's short and contentious term at the ABC wheel that a Senate committee report 'Above Board' for the first time carried recommendations that the UK 'Nolan rules' for merit selection be applied to ABC board appointments.

When you looked at the history of the ABC's relationship with government since it was fundamentally changed in 1983, with its conversion from being a 'commission' to a 'corporation', you could see the hostility. While the ABC Act gave the ABC Board statutory independence from government, the most explicit lever of government 'control' was funding. The other was the stacking of the board with political partisans.

Over 10 years, the Hawke and Keating governments screwed the ABC into the ground.

Both the Labor and Liberal/National parties in government indulged themselves with these levers as part of their adversarial and influence peddling games.

Over 10 years, the Hawke and Keating governments screwed the ABC into the ground, progressively dropping the operational funding appropriation (including capital expenditure) from $1.1 billion per annum in 1985 to $750 million by the time of the next change of government in 1996.

From 1986 to 1996, around 2,000 staff were sacked or not replaced through restructures, reshapings, site aggregations and technological change. There were determined efforts to do more with less: to lift Australian drama to 100 hours a year through co-productions with commercial production houses.

But much of the downsizing was achieved disrespectfully and without much thought for the craft and human impacts through the brutal application of 'the long white envelope' euphemistically known as 'involuntary redundancy' leading to prolonged dispute until about 1994, when some civility was restored.

What made this all the more galling was to see that the 'gatekeepers' of Australian media policy - Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch - demonstrated time and again that they had a testicular hold on our prime ministers who accommodated their policy demands.

There was Paul Keating's 'cross media' rule which helped deliver the Herald and Weekly Times newspaper group to Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd in 1987. Competition policy in print was rendered a sick joke. From then on, Rupert had a dominant position, with profitability he could use for his global acquisitions in the UK and the United States.

And for years the government delayed the introduction of subscription (pay) television in Australia to assist the free-to-air commercial broadcasters, but mainly Kerry Packer's Channel Nine. Good luck to them, you might say, in the push/shove spirit of Australian free enterprise.

Given the realpolitik behind all this, you could understand the policy power plays and their vested interest machinations. But the hostility directed towards Aunty was unfair and unwarranted given that it was a creature of an Act of the Australian Parliament, funded by taxpayers, and with a constructive history in helping to make the federation of Australia and its far-flung citizens a cohesive and robust democracy from the introduction of ABC radio in 1932.

The ABC followed the 'Reith' (Lord Reith, not Peter) model of public broadcasting, establishing a tradition of independence and public service freely accessible to and, in Australia from 1948, funded by the 'corpus of users' i.e. all taxpayers.

In 1987, then communications minister Gareth Evans proposed that the ABC be split into core and 'non-core' functions which would be open to sponsorship and other direct funding arrangements. The proposal provoked then ABC managing director David Hill and his board to mount a public campaign: "Only eight cents a day." The Hawke government was dissuaded from such a course.

Over the years, the ABC's funding model has been the subject of criticism from its commercial counterparts including News Ltd and Fairfax. In May 2003, News Ltd newspaper The Australian editorialised that the ABC should be made to take sponsorship or to be funded via the begging bowl, through fund-raising pledge-plea telethons like the niche PBS in the US. On February 10, 1995, Fairfax newspaper the Australian Financial Review editorialised that the ABC should be required to take advertising: "The ABC which now costs in excess of $500 million a year is a striking example of what many people call 'middle class welfare'. If it is true that there is now no support for advertising on the ABC that is unlikely to remain the case."

This was always a daft idea. Why would the shareholders of Fairfax want another player competing for and taking precious advertising revenue which they needed to sustain and grow their own operations? Even the Fred Hilmer-mentored Mark Scott, appointed ABC MD in 2006, recognised the strategic error in such a course when he rejected advertising as a revenue measure for ABC Online in 2008. But now Fairfax has returned to the debate with other ideas.

As recently as May 23 this year, an SMH editorial urged that the ABC be split into core and non-core products: "Your 10c could be reconfigured into, say, a 4c compulsory subsidy for meeting the ABC charter and universal access through free TV, radio and some internet content. The other 6c could come from various forms of user pays and external funding for non-core ABC products where the ABC competes with the private sector."

While the editorial now acknowledged advertising and sponsorship would not sit well with the ABC charter, it urged the ABC to start charging directly for its 'non-core streamed programs and podcasts'.

Please define 'non-core'. Is it the ABC shops and centres retailing DVDs, CDs, books, children's soft toys and other products? (ABC Shops' profit in 2012 was only $7.9 million). Is it ABC Online with its video, audio and now text-based reportage, analysis and interactive or user-generated opinion?

While everyone still working in the Australian media wants Fairfax to survive and prosper because of its great contribution to quality journalism as it migrates its paying subscribers from print to digital platforms, its latest plan for the ABC's split funding future would be highly destructive. And it is a bit rich coming after Fairfax boards failed to protect their rivers-of-gold classified ad revenues from internet raiders in jobs, cars and real estate.

With the modest enhancement of funding through the latter part of the Howard and then the Rudd 1 and Gillard years, the ABC remade itself into a digital revolutionary.

Since the turn of the century in 2000, the digital revolution has been reshaping broadcasting into 'cybercasting' with multi-channelling and the limitless capacity of broadband. 'Convergence' has arrived where broadcasting, computing and the internet come to a phone or a tablet, held in the palm of your hand. You can also beam your digital TV at your wi-fi modem and download audio, video and text content from any source on the planet. You can access content at the time you want to consume it.

As print media was financially devastated by the inroads of online advertising in jobs, real estate, goods and services; as thousands of Australian print journalists were made redundant; as local commercial free-to-air broadcasters struggled to cope with the fragmentation of their audiences and the acquisition debts of their new owners (James Packer sold the Nine Network in 2006), the ABC exploited convergence.

With the modest enhancement of funding through the latter part of the Howard and then the Rudd 1 and Gillard years, the ABC remade itself into a digital revolutionary. News 24, a children's channel and innovations like iView, with programs instantaneously available on multiple platforms, have helped to keep the ABC in the digital media game with just on 4,600 full-time equivalent staff by 2011-12 operationally costing 23 per cent less than peak funding way back in 1985.

(Needless to say the debate still rages internally and externally about the quality and distinctiveness of the genre content the ABC needs to deliver on all its platforms).

By 2011-12, operational funding was up to $840 million in that year with the Gillard/Swan budget in May 2013 adding $19.4 million (including $1.8 million capital) to place more journalists outside metropolitan cities, introduce 'youth-focussed' current affairs programming, and expand 'regional participation in programming', and $5.3 million (including $1.5 million capital) to maintain and expand the ABC's online services.

The ABC expects the latest increases to be recurrent over three years but here's the worry: any incoming Abbott government will have the final say on that.

Although Malcolm Turnbull, likely to be the communications minister in an Abbott government, has said the Coalition has no plans to cut funding to the ABC (Lateline, February 14, 2013), he also pointed to the deficit discipline now facing the national government.

If elected, the Coalition commits to a 'commission of audit' to examine waste and efficiency across agencies and departments. If this is done objectively, the ABC should be able to mount a convincing case that it is being operated efficiently and is cost effectively and demonstrably exploiting the digital revolution to increase its reach and relevance.

But if any cuts are imposed arbitrarily as they were in 1997, it will indicate the new government is out to do damage to public broadcasting for ideological and/or punitive or other yet unstated reasons.

It is at this moment that the independent Board of the ABC will have to say where it stands as guardian of this institution under the ABC Act.

All members of the current ABC Board have been appointed through publicly advertised expressions of interest and an arms-length merit selection procedure now enshrined by amendment in the ABC Act.

James Spigelman, AC QC, the former Chief Justice of NSW who replaced Maurice Newman AC as chairman of the ABC in 2012, was appointed after a merit selection process. The appointing government consulted the Opposition about Spigelman's suitability to be appointed ABC chairman and received no objection, and in fact significant support.

Under the recently amended Act, this is now a statutory requirement: the prime minister must consult the leader of the opposition before recommending a proposed chairman for appointment to the governor-general. All those who support the public service broadcasting ethos are hoping for a new maturity as a result of these simple changes.

With recovered memories from '96, friends and public broadcasting supporters have been phoning me to ask what the future holds for the ABC under an Abbott government.

After 80 years of negative perceptions about the politicising of the ABC through board stacking, the current chairman will be able to speak with a new authority and a strong voice if the need arises.

The new chairman's speeches have been well received by public broadcasters. "There has never been a time when the ABC was simply a market failure broadcaster, obliged to fill gaps in the commercial offering," he said in September last year.

He has fearlessly advocated the ABC's right to exist in the new converged media space while acknowledging some adverse commercial consequences on existing or potential providers.

"It has always had such effects - whether use of public funds constitutes competition that could be regarded as 'unfair' is a matter on which reasonable minds can differ," he said.

When the psephologists tally the marginals it looks like there will be a change of government in September. With recovered memories from '96, friends and public broadcasting supporters have been phoning me to ask what the future holds for the ABC under an Abbott government. I have been trying to answer that question, hence this article.

While Kevin Rudd has been publicly questioning if there was a malign motivation behind News Corp's get-rid-of-them front page treatment of himself and his party during this election campaign, Tony Abbott has denied having negotiated with or spoken to Rupert Murdoch about any agenda beneficial to News Corp's commercial interests.

So if they are not talking directly, what benefit telepathically could a grateful Abbott government provide for Rupert?

At the moment, both News Corp and Fairfax are trying to build pay walls around their digital content. The strategy is fraught with danger as there are many content providers, including the ABC, who do not charge users for access. Both News and Fairfax would not want a major news and entertainment content provider, like the ABC, in this space with free Australian video, audio and text content.

When he was a wannabe prime minister, then opposition leader Kevin Rudd conspicuously courted Rupert in New York in 2007 and was rewarded with a "pic fac" on Sixth Avenue and a non-aggression pact at least during the Kevin '07 campaign.

Rupert's tweets have indicated he withdrew his support for Labor in government some years ago.

In Rupert's presence as guest of honour at the 70th anniversary dinner of the Institute of Public Affairs in April, the current wannabe PM, Tony Abbott, compared Murdoch to the great Australian First World War general Sir John Monash, and Lord Florey, the co-inventor of penicillin.

Abbott effectively absolved and exonerated Rupert, then suffering reputational damage through the UK phone hacking scandal, by declaring "his publications have borne his ideals but never his fingerprints".

Given this indicia of mutual admiration, it is pertinent to ask: where does the ABC stand in all this?

Neither Tony Abbott nor Malcolm Turnbull have posted any media policy on the Liberal Party's Real Solutions website which could help to put the minds of public broadcasting supporters at rest.

The future of public broadcasting in Australia is again uncertain.

Abbott is a former journalist. But his book Battlelines (updated 2013 election edition) in which he sets out his vision for Australia does not canvass media policy.

While Tony Abbott has ruled out privatising the ABC, as recently proposed by some branches of the Liberal Party and some private enterprise think tanks, neither he nor Malcolm Turnbull have posted any media policy on the Liberal Party's Real Solutions website which could help to put the minds of public broadcasting supporters at rest.

No need to be paranoid: an absence of a specific policy should mean that the status quo will prevail, shouldn't it?

Therefore, let it be noted that the Coalition is not seeking a mandate from the Australian people to change or downsize the ABC, its comprehensive role and functions, or its funding through the digital revolution in any way. It is not seeking to exclude the ABC from its broadband video, audio and text free offerings or to charge users for access. It is not seeking a mandate to wind back the merit-selection procedures recently adopted by the Federal Parliament for appointment to the ABC and SBS boards.

If it is planning to make changes, it has an obligation to say so up front, now, before voters go to the polls.

In the event of a change of government on September 7, those remaining ABC staff and supporters traumatised by past axings are psychologically preparing for the onslaught - more vilification from News Corp with an agenda to urge the government to 'take on' the ABC over its alleged subversive culture. This could turn into déjà vu ... all over again.

At today's date, we must trust Malcolm Turnbull's word that there is no plan to cut the ABC. A $50 million cut to operational funding now under cover of staunching 'Chris Bowen's black hole' would be a hammer blow to the ABC. Within 100 days of any new Abbott government, we should know where Aunty stands.

In the event of a return to intimidation and hostility, those who support mainstream, non-commercial taxpayer-funded public broadcasting/cybercasting in Australia will have to fight hard for it. We must never get tired.

Quentin Dempster, an ABC broadcaster,is a former staff-elected director of the ABC. His book Death Struggle: How Political Malice And Boardroom Power Plays Are Killing The ABC was published in 2000. View his full profile here.